


strawberry lipstick state of mind

by gendertrouble (goblinsmacked)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 80's Music, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Denial of Feelings, Hallucinogens, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Short & Sweet, donghyuck is a rock star, mark lee is a nerd, you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22511056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblinsmacked/pseuds/gendertrouble
Summary: "There are two eyes on your forehead. How many are there in mine?"There are none. Just a few acne scars and a bucket hat vertical shadow. Donghyuck would never give it to him like that, though. The eyes on the wall stare grimly back at him, like lying is the only possible way to turn this around.And it is; Mark Lee's got eight thousand pair of eyes on his forehead. One for each time Donghyuck has called him ordinary: How could he ever think that?alternatively, Mark Lee lets himself be adored.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	strawberry lipstick state of mind

**Author's Note:**

> word vomit and unmedicated adhd mayhem brain often leads you to this sort of writing. i apologize on my behalf, but please enjoy it still. can you tell i never did drugs ever? 
> 
> (thank you to my best friend, zeke, for being so nice and putting up with my bullshit with no cash remuneration, you are an angel and a dream.)

Donghyuck can't exactly place his finger on the precise time he heard rolling stones and hurried shushing outside his bedroom window, but he's pretty sure he told Mark Lee to shut up and - _'why don't you just walk through the front door I live alone now you dumbfuck'_ somewhat close to 3AM.

He's currently dry-heaving onto his back, green velvet rug embracing his waist like paper wrap, clinging to his ribcage almost suffocatingly. "Has it kicked in yet?" Broken blue and egg yellow spills from his mouth, Mark swallows it from the other side of the bedroom, clenching his fingers into the softness of a goose feather pillow. _They don't make pillows like this anymore,_ he whispered down a cup filled with Cherry Coke to the brim. _Not if you ain't rich, no._ Donghyuck answered 'cause really, that's God's honest truth.

The room is dimmed down to a red palette, almost overwhelmingly so, lights alarmingly similar to the back of an ambulance, quickly kickstarting Donghyuck's mind to the time he chipped his chin on an amplifier not-so well positioned for him to dive right into the crowd. It ended, like most things Donghyuck, on a bloodbath, fans going home with blood stained leather jackets, show called off for the rest of the night - Donghyuck got a cool scar close to his neck now, and an ever cooler (and really convenient) ice breaker for record company parties.

"I think so," Mark Lee slurs out of his lips, hardening his tongue against the inside of his cheeks like a little kid. It's not his first time getting high, it's not his second and it isn't fucking close to being his last - but he still acts like it. A silk yellow shirt rests against his shoulders, flower pattern grinding against his pecs like a Murakami wild forest replica, and he's got this new obsession with bucket hats now, so there's obviously one cladding his raven hair, tiger printed and all.

He looks nothing short of the ideal trophy boyfriend wet dream, and really, Donghyuck is in a constant internal battle to just reach out and pull him off the shelf. But he'll never get around on doing that and - Well, it's a tragedy, really, that Mark Lee is _that_ pretty, but so, revoltingly, utterly, normal. He's not even on a C-list celebrity scale, he barely scratches off the influencer title if you squint your eyes.

Some nights, when he's high out of his better judgment, he daydreams about building a home with him, going furniture shopping at _Ikea,_ riding a Volvo and listening to bubblegum pop songs on the radio he's not really sure he's heard before. He pictures family picture frames and running out of milk on Monday mornings, dreams about sharing a bathroom sink and matching toothbrushes.

To be thoroughly, indistinguishable ordinary.

To leave behind crowded clubs, snorting all sorts of things, the rush of not knowing if you're getting papped as you leave Sunset BLVD with a celebrity, all of it for a boy. A Canadian boy, thank you very much. Vancouver's pride - he was great at hockey as a kid, graduated top of the class at the shocking age of 16, even.

Mark Lee is a dream, he's intimacy like it should be enjoyed: Getting high, listening to music, playing Animal Crossing on a pink Nintendo. Mark Lee is a _dream,_ but they'd never make it to the first page of a gossip magazine.

It's too bothersome, Donghyuck unclasps the knots inside his belly, and the hands on top of his stomach. _"Bella Donna or Rumors?"_ He says instead.

Mark fixes his eyes on a Debbie Harry poster on the wall, looking at her like she's got a moving mouth of her own. "Wasn't it my time to pick the music?" Her eyes get big like two fish-eye lenses were placed in front of them, blinking away tears almost obscenely - Mark looks away, too peeved by his own drug induced thoughts.

"Yeah," Donghyuck shifts so he's on his elbows, high enough to run his fingers through the vinyls on the floor. "But you always end up choosing _Wouldn't It Be Nice_ anyways." _It's a good song,_ Mark whispers under his breath, circling his index finger over hardwood floor.

Donghyuck settles for The Chain, grinning as the first drum tug makes Mark jump a few centimeters off the ground, disapprovingly shaking his head like he's been pranked, resting his cheek on the pillow on top of his bent knees, eyes closed.

There isn't a single repentant bone in Donghyuck's body. No one is quite as pretty as Mark Lee when he's with him, a condescending sort of handsomeness, almost like he's daring Donghyuck to blush under the influence of psychedelics. And he does as he's dared to, he squirms from head to toe, body achingly prone to glueing to Mark's back like a High School science experiment.

It's ridiculous. _And if you don't love me now._ They'll never be a thing, Donghyuck's so out of his league. _You'll never love me again,_ Stevie Nicks sings like she's a Mother giving unwanted approval on their made up relationship.

Donghyuck stills his gaze on the few blinking eyes staring him down on the wall instead.

Long eyelashes with eyeliner stains underneath them, mirroring his own post-concert looks - mayhem as usual, pointy hair and forever shining brown skin. Eyes dilated like he’s on drugs but he really isn’t. He doesn’t do that shit, performing on drugs, that is.

He’s well spirited on his own, and his mother likes to check up on his performances on Youtube - she’d kill him. She’d put him on a baby pink crochet sweater she knitted herself, and then she’d kill him. Donghyuck doesn’t do that shit. He’s too much of a momma’s boy.

Mark Lee is six times the momma's boy he is, but Donghyuck doesn’t like thinking too much about it.

All things considered, they’re still doing shrooms at three a.m., Los Angeles roars outside Donghyuck’s window, and he’s so glad that girl group member moved out from the house next door last week, ‘cause the music almost exceeds a symphony in terms of volume, ringing into their ears like a drill on a Mob man’s hand. “Is it that loud for you as well?” He asks, voice bordering on screaming.

It pinches Mark away from whatever thought his brain got stuck onto, cheeks red from being pressed down on a pillow - the eyes on the wall stare him awake, but he fails to notice. “I thought it was quite low.” His eyes are half the size they normally are, and he drags his eyelids over his face like it’s a burden. Mark takes the whole being high experience totally differently than Donghyuck himself, he enjoys it far more for one.

It eases down his whole self, what is normally hectic and borderline livid, turns mushy and calm, he’s nothing close to restless, but quite the opposite. Mark Lee is the beginning to whichever end Donghyuck’s led to.

Also, he’s mostly quiet.

Donghyuck is loud.

It’s not sheer coincidence that he chose Rock music. Really, all paths led him to bloody lips and screaming ‘til his throat is sore. It’s his thing, Mark’s more of a acoustic guitar kind of guy, he goes to open mics, he doesn’t scream - he singsongs instead. Because he’s kind-hearted and, anyways - he graduated top of his class, remember?

He fixes the bucket hat on top of his head. Donghyuck gulps, the eyes on the wall scoff at him, they don’t have lips, tongues, thoughts or opinions of their own. They’re not there at all, actually - but they mock him, and they mock him and they mock him.

In all honesty, Donghyuck is a blink away from losing his shit. He’s also so, _so_ tired. Everything seems like it takes double the effort these days.

Mark stares at him like he’s got grey-ish clouds on his forehead, eyes going down the front of his shirt all the way to his sweater pants, it prickles right on top of the little coat-hanger inked on his left shin. Mark Lee is so weird. “Will you take me with you on tour this time?” He says, voice overtaking the music, _You Make Loving Fun_ reverberates off the walls now, Christine Mcvie’s promising voice sitting between the two of them. _Sweet wonderful you,_ Donghyuck wants to tell him he’d take him anywhere. _You make me happy with the things you do._ He’d share a grave with him if it wasn’t so straightforward.

_Oh._

_Can it be so?_

He nods instead, to avoid saying something he’d later on regret. To avoid saying something dangerous, to unceremoniously let three words that’ll burn and be the focus point of all his break-up songs for the rest of his life slip out of his lips. Donghyuck nods, and then: “Tell me.” Mark asks, “tell me about it. Will you take me?” He chances once again, fingers now white against his torn jeans.

Donghyuck sees the face of every lover he’s ever had, he sees it splattered on the red-ish walls of his room and, _oh,_ they blink back at him. He sees frantic kisses at back alleys and timid neck kisses backstage. He sees love poem after love poem after love poem and they all spell out Mark Lee’s name. The words rush so quickly he’s aware of it eons after it starts. “I want you to come with me.” He attempts. And it’s so ridiculously tiny he’s scared he’s lost his gregarious posture to drugs. But he didn’t, and Mark Lee’s waiting for him. “I do.”

Fleetwood Mac isn’t much louder than elevator music at this point, the background sound of a pivotal scene in a movie, the final act. It mingles with the opening lines and - a movie isn’t just a movie, it is steady storytelling, it is hanging at the edge of the seat as the love interest pours down their devotion to a heartaching crowd, it’s a beginning and an end. _Don’t, don’t break the spell._ “I want you to watch every concert of mine by the side of the stage.”

The eyes blink back at him approvingly. “If you want to.”

Mark Lee looks like a baby bird and, anyways - that's not totally off-putting, right? His cheeks are a shade of crimson red from rubbing too harshly against the soft surface of the pillow and his lips are still - well, they're still connected to his face and Donghyuck doesn't think about them at all.

He doesn't think about spitting watermelon juice inside his mouth, he doesn't think about the slug trail of saliva he'd leave behind, and he definitely doesn't think about whatever's underneath Mark Lee's shirt that he's aching to press his fingers on if he ever got the chance to.

He doesn't. _Donghyuck's totally out of his league._

"I want to." It's a sentence without an ending as per usual, they both stay silent. _And I don't have to tell you but you're the only one._

Donghyuck is only aware of it when it rushes past his shoulder, and settles under his chin but he's pretty sure Mark's hand is close to his neck.

Mark's hand is thoroughly positioned around his neck, thumb on top of his Adam's apple. Mark's hand is on his neck - he's had worse.

Donghyuck gulps.

Where were they when all of this started happening?

The thing about psychedelics is that they'll steal time right in front of you. They'll change matter, turn ice into liquid and gas into Salt and Vinegar chips. They'll draw eyes on the wall and steal time afterwards. It's a quarter to four a.m. - where's all the time gone?

Mark's hand is still - you get it. He gives it a light squeeze, Donghyuck isn't scared.

Mark Lee is an angel through and through, he's moved to LA to be closer to his childhood best friend and, _I gotta look out for you now that you're a rock star._ Mark Lee is an angel, how could any man be so lucky to have his hand wrapped around their neck, strategically speaking, literally just a second away from snapping it grotesquely from the rest of his body?

When did the narrative shift, anyway?

"You do?" His hand isn't overbearing, it is not mean or unsettling. It's sweet, Donghyuck supposes, it's as if through the midst of a trip, the throbbing artery on his neck was a mere reminder of their physical existence.

The vein is an A2 string and his neck is the guitar. They've switched roles.

"Yes," Donghyuck whispers. Mark's thumb is still fixated against the up's and down's of the lump inside his throat.

It's sits almost like an accusation, an alarming splash of cold water to the face: How dare of Donghyuck to be this alive, and this much of a boy. How dare of him to gulp down on mushroom tea and still look twice the person Mark will never be.

It's upsetting, he figures, but then Mark Lee smiles. Donghyuck would walk through fire for him, stand on heavy rain, has the room been this bright all along? The lamp on top of his head screams yellow, the glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling sit patiently above it all, looking down at the odd pair of boys, like it waits for their clothes to be on the floor anytime soon.

They are not. Not for now.

Mark's smile breaks in half, and then in half again, and then it is taking space all over his face in one swift motion, teeth rushing to hide behind a set of bubblegum pink gummies. "You're so silly." And: "There are two eyes on your forehead. How many are there in mine?"

There are none. Just a few acne scars and a bucket hat vertical shadow. Donghyuck would never give it to him like that, though. The eyes on the wall stare grimly back at him, like lying is the only possible way to turn this around.

And it is; Mark Lee's got eight thousand pair of eyes on his forehead. One for each time Donghyuck has called him ordinary: How could he ever think that?

"Thirty-three. One for every concert you'll attend." He chooses instead. Mark squeezes his neck still, one more time, then his finger goes flying to the mole exceedingly close to the inside of Donghyuck's collar.

It is done with extreme caution, but one thing turns into another - and they're both a few minutes away from each other. Donghyuck could swallow the seconds down from how palpable it feels in thin air.

Mark's hand is so close, it is so close but not nearly enough. Donghyuck recounts an article he read while on tour, about how the sensation of touch is just a brain-elaborated illusion to translate interactions between electrons and the electromagnetic field.

You're never really touching anything, you are just hovering above it by an unfathomably small distance, _so_ small your brain tricks you into thinking it is touching.

It isn't though - and for Mark Lee to fully touch him he'd have to be inside him, eat him bone by bone, turn his own skin into a jacket and zip it shut.

Donghyuck would do it but - he's probably just high anyway.

The room is still bright red, the eyes on the wall stare at him expectantly like he owes them an apology, and maybe he does. Maybe he's done something terrible and cruel to each and every pair and they're just waiting for the downfall of whatever it is that he's got with the boy in front of him.

Waiting for him to mess things up like he's known for, to settle for a comfort label, one that itches his knees and sits weirdly around his shoulders, but is still safe.

Because it is safe to stay like this, to put off changing until it feels too far to even try to reach. Staying like this is safe and - exhausting. It's exhausting not to take matters into his own hands, only to watch it slip through his fingers just to catch it mid-air like an origami.

Donghyuck's exhausted.

Mark knows, because he's Mark, but also because he's his best friend. And best friend's just know.

"Why are you always looking at the wall?" He asks, voice ever so distant, too far away to have come from just a few centimeters of distance. Mark's voice bounces back on the four-wall room and lays on Donghyuck's lap. As nurturing and caring as any best friend. _Mark Lee is an angel._

"I'm tripping, man." He answers shortly, wincing at his choice of words but - _hey,_ he really is tripping. So is Mark. So are the eyes on the wall.

Mark eases the hold on Donghyuck's neck, pulling his thumb away from the spot close to his chest. "Wasn't that the point?" He places the palm of his open hand on top of his own chest instead, almost too carefully, to not disturb, not awaken anything inside of himself.

Donghyuck feels the opening of his ribcage.

They work in a symbiotic sort of relationship, He relies on Mark to breathe, Mark depends on him to feel.

And it goes on for ages, Donghyuck breathes in and out, Mark touches his chest like it dares him to tear it apart and look inside.

How could he ever think Mark was anything but _extraordinary?_

How could he ever think there wasn't any depth to him and - even worse, think he wouldn't trade it all for a second of hearing the beating of his heart through his silk shirt?

Donghyuck pauses the record, _You Make Loving Fun_ went on to _I Don't Want to Know_ and, anyways, that's too melodramatic. He pulls the _Bella Donna_ LP out of its case. It's a classic, a common favorite. He drops the needle.

Stevie Nicks' voice echoes through the room once again, Debbie Harry watches the whole scene with spite. _You can ride high atop your pony,_ Mark catches his breath, _I know you won't fall._

Donghyuck knows he likes this one, he's caught him humming it under his breath a few times. It's a fantasy sold entirely for Mark's likings.

 _You can fly swinging from your trapeze,_ Donghyuck smiles, _scaring all the people._ He feels Mark's heartbeat at the tip of his finger. _But you'll never scare me._

It's so intimate it pains him. Engulfing him in tiny sips, it starts with Mark's fingers, then the way he touches his chest, it follows by his apprehensive slide against the velvet rug, moving 'til they're face to face.

"Don't you know that the stars are a part of us?" He mouths the lyrics. It isn't romantic - it's not a love song, it wasn't shaped to be.

It's about a journey, an adventure towards womanhood and the powers you gain with it, _from_ it, on behalf of it. Donghyuck sees these lines - womanhood, manhood - so thin, so easy to crumb down at the slightest of touches. Mark does it for him.

It's so nice, to talk with no words. To be silently understood in a room pumping with guitar solos and echoing singing voices. It's so nice - Donghyuck wouldn't want it any other way with him.

He feels, and Mark does by extent. Like they're connected by a yellow string, it's children's play.

Mark rests his hand down, gently placing it on his own thigh, the other one, still around Donghyuck's neck, slides down to his stomach, it lays there for a second too much, until it starts tingling. "Why is it that you only call me over to get high with you?"

"That's not true." Donghyuck answers before Mark's fully done with the question, getting whiplash by his own eagerness. "I'm busy, you know."

It comes off as a bit mean, Donghyuck is aware, he just needs to get his point across.

He needs Mark to understand that a single minute without him isn't worth living and getting high it's just a mere made up pretext to see him.

"Yeah, I just -" Mark cuts his own words short, not fully ready to dive in shroom-induced honesty. It comes in waves, sometimes it takes them hours to fully immerse themselves into the trip. Other times it doesn't happen at all. There's also this sort of limbo, and they seem to be stuck right in the center of it tonight.

"I just miss you, really." Mark speaks like it's the first time, like he's scraping hoarseness off his throat, fully giving into it. "I can't ask you to miss old days, I could never, _Duckie."_ He slips the nickname so easily off his tongue, like they're still 7 years old, selling homemade lemonade on his front porch. It's just so easy.

"But I do on my own, I miss it for the both of us. And you're doing so well," There's a silent: _by yourself,_ that goes by unmentioned. "Doing what you love, I couldn't be happier. This was my dream as well, for you to make it, you know?"

Donghyuck does, he remembers all the pamphlets Mark handed out for his first gig on a shitty bar near downtown. He remembers papercuts and the printer not working well unless you gave it a light punch, he remembers a lot of cussing and double the loving. It's just so easy.

He nods, waiting for Mark to go on, but he doesn't, stills his gaze on the loose threads of his own jeans instead. Mark doesn't have much to say because, really, there isn't a whole lot to be said.

Donghyuck willingly distanced himself from everyone back home. Shielded himself from the possibility of ever losing them and - things shouldn't really go like that.

Not with best friends, or anyone, really, but especially not with Mark.

He wants him to know life for him isn't just getting papped leaving clubs, attending meetings half drunk or mistakenly tweetings things he _really_ shouldn't tweet. Because it definitely isn't, Donghyuck is still mostly himself.

He wants Mark to know love isn't a commodity, it can't and won't be bought. _I love you and you don't pay me to,_ it sits on his tongue for a second but he swallows it down.

It's not that complicated, he can't find the right words still. Everything falls flat when Mark is staring at him with unmistakably giant saucer eyes. The ones on the wall are nothing close to this - he doesn't see himself reflected off of them.

"I do miss it, though." He attempts, "I'd be a huge fuckin' liar if I said I didn’t." There aren't nearly enough words. "You're my best friend."

Five words shouldn't be able to tear down almost a life-long spell.

It shouldn't because really, there's so much to be said. And screamed. And dragged out of both of their chests - there's so much.

But it seems like enough for now. Enough for Mark. _You're my best friend,_ and I'll work things out for the both of us.

 _You're my best friend,_ and I'll pack my bags just to be close to you.

 _You're my best friend,_ and I can't give you the past back but I can give you thirty three concerts.

It's just the right thing for now. And Donghyuck would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit disappointed at Mark for giving in so easily. He deserves to be hurt, he deserves to be shut down and completely ignored.

He doesn't get that, though. Because Mark is closing in on the distance between them, and Donghyuck is looking at him like he's gone mental and maybe he did. Maybe he did and five words were only enough for him because he's lacking better judgement.

It's ridiculous, Donghyuck would advise him against it if he weren't in the eye of the hurricane himself. He'd tell Mark to run and run and run, because someone that relies on A, B and C lists isn't worth it. Someone that cares about such futile and external things shouldn't be trusted. Tabloids won't get him anywhere near Mark's heart and that's the truth he'll live with.

There'll be always an infinitesimal part of Mark's being that despises Donghyuck. And he deserves to carry that around.

"I could never hate you," Mark says, and Donghyuck's so afraid he might have said all those things out loud he closes his eyes. It's so scary - this type of intimacy is just so, _so_ scary.

Mark breaks the last string of distance. Maybe life-long confrontations can't be broken that easily, maybe it takes wounding and healing and wounding again for it to be bored down to its core. Maybe it'll take them more than just one all-nighter.

But the morning comes on gently, it sits with its head against their backs, pushing them together lightly. The chirping of birds mends itself with the music, one grand Sonata in the name of loving.

Mark's hand touches his shoulder first, then his forearm, his elbow, it gives him a sour sensation underneath his tongue. It's all so much but not nearly enough.

His hand settles atop Donghyuck's own, _Mark Lee is an angel. His only angel._

_It's just so easy._

"Can I kiss you?" It's like an interlude, a pause between two cosmic acts. The awareness of a before and after floats above their heads. _They'll never be the same,_ and none of them want to, anyway. "Is that okay?"

He asks again, not sure if Donghyuck even heard the words coming out of his lips the first time. He did, and they're now engraved on his skin permanently, washed down on the walls where once were deranged eyes.

It's all gone and it's just - _can I kiss you?_

"Yes," Donghyuck says, keeping his own wishes at arm’s length, because if he lets himself go it'd go more like: Yes, _yes_ a million times _yes._ Thirty three yes' and eight thousand more. "You may."

It doesn't go as he's expected - most of his lifetime kisses were rushed, eager, like their time span was set out before it even started. _You have 30 seconds, make the most out of it._ It doesn't go like that with Mark.

A kiss is nothing but a promise of many more to come.

And this is the cooling part of a fever, you see, the slackening of the jaw, the softening of a grip that tears nails off its fingers. Mark lays his lips on Donghyuck's and his ears feel instantly numb like they've been stuffed with cotton.

He tips his mouth to house Donghyuck's lips - _this is how it should feel like._

Like it isn't a burden. Because that's not remotely close from what affection really is; it is not something you should scrape your knees for, ideally, it should arrive with a light breeze, the soft brush of Mark's fingers against his hair, it should be like that.

It shouldn't hurt, and it shouldn't leave you empty. It should fill you up instead, in any way you can think of, really, any way you want it to.

Affection is a welcome home gift and - Donghyuck recalls once reading a poem that went along the lines of: _There is a sign and it says: This earth is blessed. Do not play in it. But I swear I will play on this blessed earth until I die._

This is how it should be and, anyways - Mark Lee's lips are heartbreakingly sweet. Donghyuck could get used to the taste of it. _Until I die,_ it echoes inside his head.

His hand is back on the side of his neck but it shifts so quickly; the ghost of it remains. It stops on his cheek instead, thumb resting inexplicably close to their connected lips. Mark's mapping their kiss out, connecting the dots and setting the paths down, to keep it in his pocket, as a token, to check when he feels like it.

When he misses it.

He doesn't have to, Donghyuck wants to say. He doesn't have to miss his kisses because they are his now. Affection is a welcome home gift and Donghyuck is giving it to Mark permanently.

He sets a hand on top of Mark's, intertwining his fingers with his'. Plucking it off his face and placing on Mark's jeans-cladded thigh instead. It goes on for ages, it's a kiss for the ages. Stevie Nicks assists as background guidance, their own lyrical support.

It ends with a peck, Mark's giddy, and maybe five words do end untalked-of misfortunes.

Maybe they successfully ease down invisible walls that have been harbored for years.

His lips are as red as the rest of the world. The mushrooms seem to have made their way through their bloodstream by now by the looks of Mark's transcendent stare at his face.

It's happiness mixed with light exasperation, and it sure doesn't fail to make Mark Lee who he is.

"I've wanted to do that for so long," he exhales the worth of a ten-second long breath, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. _"So_ long, you have no idea."

He _does,_ Donghyuck does, but he won't ruin this for him.

Because _wanting_ something rarely is just about the outcome of said possibility, it has very little to do with the fact that you may or may not receive it in the aftermath. You want things simply because you _do._

Mark wants Donghyuck because he _does._ If you only wanted things you knew for a fact you were going to get, there'll be no point in wanting them at all.

When stripped down to the simple stuff, this is what makes them _them._ Wanting with a closed eye to the near outcome, wanting because it's what they were born to do. Not only as _boys_ \- but people.

It's scary, because how couldn't it be? How could you run into the sore eyes of lust and not be scared shitless? How could you gape fixedly at Mark Lee's upturning smile and not feel like it is the oncoming end of the world?

They don't have to figure things out right now, though - there's thirty three concerts ahead of them for longer that they can count.

And when it comes to the day there isn't, there'll be a lifetime and - anyways, there's Brazil during the summer, and Russia's winter solstice and every concrete wall in every corner of the world.

There's Donghyuck grubby bedroom floor and Mark Lee's rented flat near Hyde Park and -

Donghyuck's clock yells from his bedside table like it's gotten tired of being put to the side, brutally awaking them from whatever kiss induced trance they have guided themselves into.

It's 5 a.m.

_Where has all the time gone?_

_Here,_ Donghyuck plants the pad of his finger on top of Mark's lips. _Here,_ he tucks his raven hair behind his ear.

**Author's Note:**

> i know, you never intended to be in this world.  
> but you’re in it all the same.  
> so why not get started immediately.
> 
> i mean, belonging to it.  
> there is so much to admire, to weep over.  
> and to write music or poems about.
> 
> bless the feet that take you to and fro.  
> bless the eyes and the listening ears.  
> bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.  
> bless touching.
> 
> \- the fourth sign of the zodiac, mary oliver


End file.
